The End of Anonymity, Part II

Some apologies are in order to some of my unfrequent readers 😉 — not being very good with humour (I wish I were), I usually use irony and sarcasm instead.

Obviously it’s funny for me to see people commenting me elsewhere and misquoting my words as meaning exactly the opposite 🙂 Sarcasm is usually hard to spot in written communication, even when it has some nice smileys or exclamation marks after it. But I’m not consistent in my use of them — caveat lector.

So if it wasn’t obvious to the many people who commented, misquoted, misunderstood, and misused by words — no, I’m not “happy” with all the new things that Linden Lab is introducing that will allow — I even say “require” — forfeiting your anonymity (I prefer the word “pseudonimity” which is not only quite different in scope, but established as a right across millenia) and introduce as much real life data about yourself as technically possible; ultimately, if things go this way, a Matrix-style Second Life will capture your whole body through your webcam and replicate it to the last precious atom inside a pixellised world — Ad maiorem Dei gloriam, I can only presume.

Voice in SL, validation techniques for age, sex/gender, race, religion, and who knows what else will be possible, will be here in a very short time, as will grabbing chat logs for private estates, to help estate owners to deal better with abuse reports, now that those will be handled locally first. Next will come face morphing, and perhaps a scanned copy of your ID card on your SL profile. The important bit here, that is always being stressed by so many (including Linden Lab!) is that all this will be opt-in — you can remain anonymous/pseudonymous if you wish.